GOLDHOFER

[Opie]

This purchase I was told was done at the VP level. It was after all $750k a piece. I'm sure the brain childs got a hefty bonus for the projective savings. :mf_boff:

Looks like a "Brother inlaw deal" to me.

 

[Opie]

You're out of order Brother...How dare you expect to have someone with authority apply common sense to an issue? 😛 😛

To them, their education and intellegence is above common sense.

 

[Crapdog]

The BEAN counters need to take a look at the staples in one of those guys heads so they could put a value on his bean... Ahh... lets see ...how many staples was it? Six?.....750,000 divided by.....ahh... if he retires early we can save money and get a bigger bonus right?..... :blink:

 

[TWU informer]

I vote that we demand the Board of Director's double the stock award bonus of the person or persons responsible for purchasing the GoldHofer.

Afterall, in today's management market, we would hate to see such superior and experienced leadership leave and go work somehwere else. :blink:

 

[AMFAMAN]

We are being told that the testing of the goldhofer will continue next week. I guess they won't be satisfied until they get the results they want.

 

[Opie]

We are being told that the testing of the goldhofer will continue next week. I guess they won't be satisfied until they get the results they want.

Actually AA makes money by continuing these test. The more mechanics they put out on ID the better off they are. They pay you 10 days for ID. Then the state Workmans Comp. starts paying $712.00 a week tax free. If you have enough sick time on the books the company will use enough hours to bring you up to your monthly pay rate. For me thats 2.3 hrs a day. I'm out for another 6 to 8 Months. Look at what they save on me.

 

[eolesen]

We are being told that the testing of the goldhofer will continue next week. I guess they won't be satisfied until they get the results they want.

That's one way of looking at it, but perhaps you should step back a second, and consider that perhaps the company is just as fed up with them as you guys are?... They don't want to pay out money for a product that can't do what it was supposed to do any more than you would.

There are contractual steps the company has to take to prove to Goldhofer that they're not working as promised. They can't just go by the reports alone.

Based on what you guys have said, and the failed test last week, it shouldn't take much more to get them replaced or removed with a refund. Hopefully, nobody else gets injured, and they don't take out a nose gear in the process (although, AA could probably benefit from the hull insurance claim...)

 

[AMFAMAN]

That's one way of looking at it, but perhaps you should step back a second, and consider that perhaps the company is just as fed up with them as you guys are?... They don't want to pay out money for a product that can't do what it was supposed to do any more than you would.

There are contractual steps the company has to take to prove to Goldhofer that they're not working as promised. They can't just go by the reports alone.

Based on what you guys have said, and the failed test last week, it shouldn't take much more to get them replaced or removed with a refund. Hopefully, nobody else gets injured, and they don't take out a nose gear in the process (although, AA could probably benefit from the hull insurance claim...)

I wish that was the case, and what we all assumed, but now management claims they are getting them retrofitted with the generators so we can have the aircrafts lights on at night. Of course they could be the payoff from goldhofer for the problems, but who are they going to get to drive the thing?

 

[TWU informer]

We should ask one of the consulting firms to make a decision on this one.

 

[DFWPRIUS]

Hello to all,

Well guys now I have only 27 more days to wait until I can fill out all the forms and get my AOA badge back.

This sitting at home is a big pile.

Golfhofer #22770, I have been told it is going back to Goldhofer because something is wrong with just this one unit.

One thing when I come back the airport may not allow me to drive a hofer again, breaks my heart.

NO WAY WILL I EVER GET BACK INTO A GOLDHOFER, I WILL NOT LET IT HAVE ANOTHER CHANCE TO TRY AND KILL ME.

 

[eolesen]

Are you saying that the incursion and the test unit were one and the same? Is it actually possible that the problems are related to just one of the units?...

We should ask one of the consulting firms to make a decision on this one.

They would have recommended the Douglas TBL-400... it's rated for a 744.

TUL could have also asked the guys at HDQ-GSE. They were recommending the Douglas-Kalmar when it first came out in 1990.

But, it appears M&E has decided to operate as their own company within the company once again, because nobody without an A&P could possibly understand the complexity involved in picking a piece of adequate ground equipment...

 

[The Goose]

... because nobody without an A&P could possibly understand the complexity involved in picking a piece of adequate ground equipment ...

I certainly hope you're being facetious here - it's been my experience that two A&Ps couldn't agree on the shape of a table due to their egos (not all are that way but more than a few are).

Let's use some reasoning here; using any machine like these blessed Goldhofers to drag an aircraft around by its nose gear sounds like a good idea and would work just dandy IF the towing machine's capacity isn't exceeded.

Gee - I wonder how the manufacturer came up with these towing maximums; did they actually test with real weights or did they pull arbitrary numbers from a hat?

Did the manufacturer think it would be OK to take chances on running in front of aircraft approaching while running WFO, hoping the entire rig would stop using only tug braking? That's quite a bit of mass with a huge amount of stored energy behind it. Does anyone really believe a friggin' tug will negate all that energy?

Regardless of the size, neither the Goldhofers (nor any other tractor) are designed to do what the controller required and the mechs did. Kinda like one of those jacked-up 4WD trucks that run around town - they may be able to move but they don't stop any quicker, regardless of how high they are.

Mother Nature is really a ####, isn't she?

 

[aapitbull]

I certainly hope you're being facetious here - it's been my experience that two A&Ps couldn't agree on the shape of a table due to their egos (not all are that way but more than a few are).

Let's use some reasoning here; using any machine like these blessed Goldhofers to drag an aircraft around by its nose gear sounds like a good idea and would work just dandy IF the towing machine's capacity isn't exceeded.

Gee - I wonder how the manufacturer came up with these towing maximums; did they actually test with real weights or did they pull arbitrary numbers from a hat?

Did the manufacturer think it would be OK to take chances on running in front of aircraft approaching while running WFO, hoping the entire rig would stop using only tug braking? That's quite a bit of mass with a huge amount of stored energy behind it. Does anyone really believe a friggin' tug will negate all that energy?

Regardless of the size, neither the Goldhofers (nor any other tractor) are designed to do what the controller required and the mechs did. Kinda like one of those jacked-up 4WD trucks that run around town - they may be able to move but they don't stop any quicker, regardless of how high they are.

Mother Nature is really a ####, isn't she?

Well I am a AP mechanic and I only needed about a minute to look at the set up to tell you I would not ever step foot in one of the things. You see the truth is you do not need to be a AP or GSE mechanic to know that they are dangerous.

My Father was in the Trucking business and I can tell first hand that trailers have brakes for a host of reasons not the least of which is stopping, the configuration used in all of these tugs that I have seen is that of tractor trailer using the nose wheel in place of the fifth wheel on the truck the problem there is the nose wheel tires are free to rotate and under a large enough load do and allow the ass end of the tractor to lift off the groung normally this would be prevented by trailer braking but since the trailer aka {Boeing 777} has no braking all that energy is transfered to the point of connection between it and the tractor. No truck driver I have ever met would dream of pulling something that weighs that much with a tractor so small without trailer brakes.

Of course this just the opinion of one AP who I assure wil never drive the current tug!!!

 

[TWU informer]

Are you saying that the incursion and the test unit were one and the same? Is it actually possible that the problems are related to just one of the units?...

They would have recommended the Douglas TBL-400... it's rated for a 744.

TUL could have also asked the guys at HDQ-GSE. They were recommending the Douglas-Kalmar when it first came out in 1990.

But, it appears M&E has decided to operate as their own company within the company once again, because nobody without an A&P could possibly understand the complexity involved in picking a piece of adequate ground equipment...

What kind of management team has the TUL group purchasing TUG's for line maintenance HUB's? Sounds like another justification for increases in stock award bonus payouts. We wouldn't want these superior folks leaving for another airline.

You know as well I do that this decision was made strictly on cost by some bean counter in finance. You can ridicule the A&P License all you want, but it wont change the facts. Besides the Overland Resource Group along with AA Management has been begging for the A&P involvement in the decision making process. In fact, many managers now have A&P Counterparts. Is this designed to allow folks like yourself to blame the A&P when things go wrong?

 

[The Goose]

We should ask one of the consulting firms to make a decision on this one.

That would be too much like asking them for sensible/practical advice, wouldn't it?

My God, man - have ye no idea what ye ask for?